RIAA contractors accused of illegal investigation in New York

Yet another defendant in a RIAA file sharing lawsuit has decided to fight back. On behalf of his client Rolando Armurao, who is accused of illegally distribution of more than 500 songs using Limewire P2P software, Richard Altman filed a brief with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York asking that all evidence collected by representatives of Media Sentry be thrown out of court due to the lack of a private investigator's license.

"Plaintiffs proceed in these copyright infringement cases based upon evidence of file-sharing or distribution derived from investigations conducted by Safenet, Inc., a private company operating under the name of Media Sentry," Altman's motion stated. Media Sentry is paid by record labels to find file sharers violating music industry copyrights and get enough information for RIAA lawyers to initiate court cases.

Altman told Computerworld that New York state law there are only a few circumstances where such evidence gathering doesn't require a license, and that the RIAA cases don't fall into the category of an exception. "This is a private company. So I've asked their evidence be excluded," he said

Although others have made similar claims about illegal, or at least questionable, RIAA investigatory practices in the past, to date these claims haven't been argued in the courtroom, with some settled out of court and at least one case, which the Oregon State Attorney General has gotten personally involved in, still pending.

9 user comments

when the maffia tells the government what to do, and gets laws like the "DMCA" and bills introduced into the "Spy Act" to protect their DRM you know they are above the law. The RIAA/MPAA are not accountable in the US.

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 06 Feb 2008 @ 4:21

This mafia commission also owns the big US corporate media networks; so don't ever expect to hear objective reporting. Their illegal activites is not newsworthy either. Their political coverage stinks too. They avoid covering anybody, who is not one of their hos...

Quote:Although others have made similar claims about illegal, or at least questionable, RIAA investigatory practices in the past

That's putting it lightly. It's disgusting to see how the RIAA is able to put whatever practices they feel neccessary, no matter the level of personal infringement, into play to gather "evidence" for their suits.

Originally posted by cousinkix: This mafia commission also owns the big US corporate media networks; so don't ever expect to hear objective reporting. Their illegal activites is not newsworthy either. Their political coverage stinks too. They avoid covering anybody, who is not one of their hos...

Sony doesn't own CBS Television. They own what used to be CBS Records (Sony BMG Entertainment), which is an entirely different thing. CBS was at one point owned by Viacom, the company which also owns Paramount. A couple of years ago, Viacom and CBS split, with the new CBS Paramount Television including the TV network and television production assets. In other words they're not owned by Sony or any other company that owns a major music label.

They are now down to 500+ songs shared! Not too long ago they were at 2000+. I think their tactics are working all too well. Maybe they have decided to become more random with their attacks. With 50 million users in just the US they can't all be even marginally smart.